


Subspecies: Bloodloss

by Memoriam



Series: Subspecies: Bloodstained [3]
Category: Subspecies
Genre: Gen, Horror, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-07-08
Updated: 2009-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:23:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Memoriam/pseuds/Memoriam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Subspecies: Bloodlines. Michelle discovers that the weight of obligation can be the heaviest shackle of all as she struggles to retain her hard-won freedom in the face of a fate that will not be denied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subspecies: Bloodloss

She hadn't expected it to stink.

The miasma was nearly overwhelming: stale air, the thick, caked smell of cheap makeup, the chemical bite of spilled liquor, unchanged linens, unwashed feet, blood, semen, vomit, all of it undercut by the harsh, headache inducing tang of industrial cleaner.

It was overpowering enough to send her back a step, her weight poised on one heel, ready to turn and flee as if from an attacker. She raised her arm and buried her face in her elbow, inhaling the cold, crisp scent of her leather jacket, hoping that it would be enough to drive the fug from her delicate senses, but the breath only brought with it a renewed assault. She shut her eyes, exhaling, forcing every molecule of air from her lungs that she could, and waited, searching for blankness of thought, trying to drive the nauseating sensations from her mind.

A moment later, she dropped her arm, raising her head carefully, as if expecting an ambush; she knew better than to draw another breath.

Nothing. The faint ache at her temples was already receding.

As satisfied as she could be, given the circumstances, Michelle Morgan shouldered the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the hotel room.

Her eyes flicked from detail to detail in the small, shabby room, searching for some sign of the filth that her nose insisted must be piled within; but, after a moment, realized that she would probably not discover any. It looked tidy enough; almost cozy, in a rustic sort of way. The small bed was neatly made, its quilt showing signs of careful mending; the nightstand and narrow table crammed into one corner both gleamed with furniture polish. This was not a sty; she had simply afforded herself an insight into the small, everyday horrors that most people passed through their lives blissfully unaware of.

_Mites, _she told herself, trying to ward off this new unpleasantness with a familiar one. _Millions of mites, in every mattress. _There were all sorts of things that people chose not notice; she would simply have to develop a much more extensive list.

Not that it would have mattered much if it had been filthy; she was not planning on patronizing this establishment any longer than absolutely necessary. She shut the door gently with a booted foot, turning to shrug the long, round case from her shoulder and lay it carefully one the edge of the bed. The city lights shone through the thin chintz curtains, but it was remarkably quiet, for all of that; the faint thump and mutter of a television at the end of the hall shrouded any other incidental noises she might have been able to hear. It was a week night, and late enough that the clerk had been surprised to see her; she did not expect to encounter any trouble. Not here, at any rate.

She surveyed the tiny kingdom a fistful of crumpled drachmas had obtained for her, surprised at how little anxiety it actually inspired in her. She had paced the streets for an hour, gnawed by the memories of her last, terrible attempt to seek shelter in a hotel; there were so very many things that could go wrong, even if she knew better than to try to stay. The very sight of the generic furniture might have been enough to stir prickles of unease; the mere act of using her name enough to trigger pursuit, capture, defeat. But in the end, she had forced herself into it, uncertain of what else to do, once she'd realized just how extensive the problem was; and, here, now, she found that she did not care. She had much better things to be frightened of than a modest, every day business transaction.

It wasn't exactly a relief.

She crossed the room in two strides, seeking the true object of her desires; the knob of the door spun loosely under her hand for a moment, but before the spark of confusion could blossom into annoyance, it caught, the door opening onto an equally small, but no less well-kept bathroom.

Perfect.

She shrugged out of her jacket, turning to toss it onto the corner table, and winced when she heard it slither to the floor behind her. She unbuttoned the left cuff of her flannel over shirt, pushing it up past her elbow, and considered the small, wide streak of crusted dry blood that adorned the inside of her wrist. Looking at it now, she could hardly believed that she'd missed it; dark and flaking, it pulled against the soft, fine hairs of her arm as she turned it. She'd picked at it surreptitiously as she'd walked, debating what to do, but it seemed to have done little good, as sharp as the feel of it peeling from her flesh had been; even in the places she'd managed to remove it, a faint maroon stain overlaid the paleness of her skin like a fog.

Not that that was the worst of it. As if waiting to be discovered, she'd run her fingers nervously through her hair as she retreated from the station, only to have them snag in a matted cluster of curls at the ends of her hair. There was a strange, prickly feeling at the small of her back that she suspected was another dried patch; there was certainly one on her shoulder, catching annoyingly against the thin fabric of the t-shirt she'd stolen. She had suddenly felt spattered, besmirched, unclean; no wonder the ticket clerk had looked at her so strangely.

She didn't know whose it was.

Sidling in between the toilet and the sink, she reached over to open the hot water tap, gratified by how quickly the water ran clean and clear. The hotel was upscale enough to offer complimentary soap; she palmed one of the miniature bars and slit its wrapping with a fingernail, lettering it flutter to the floor unheeded. Carefully, she slipped her bloody arm beneath the stream of water, rubbing gingerly at it with the thin slice of soap. She could feel the tug of it against her skin, the insistent pressure of the water against her, swirling pinkly in the bowl of the sink, but the dried smear was not easily dislodged. Reaching behind her, she unwound a streamer of scratchy paper from the toilet roll and swabbed desultorily at it, not expecting much success, and soon gave it up.

It had been worth a try.

She eyed the tub; an old fashioned, claw-footed number, it would have to serve her purposes, no matter what sort of microbial peril might be lurking on its gleaming, porcelain surface. She knew better than to take another breath.

With a faint sigh, she slipped out of the flannel shirt, balling it up and setting it on the closed lid of the toilet. She raised her hands and rubbed them against her face, kneading lightly at her temples. She knew her face was clean; she remembered wiping at herself. Someone would have said something; people would have recoiled. It was a stupid thing to worry about. She knew what she'd see, now. A small, ironic smile quirked the corners of her lips. Perhaps she ought to enjoy it while she still could.

Lowering her hands, she eased her way out from between the sink and the toilet, moving to stand before the sink. She turned the tap off with a faint squeal of protesting metal, the water vanishing down the drain with a sucking gurgle. She gripped the sides of the sink tightly, her head lowered, curly hair dangling in her face; and, before she could talk herself out of it, she raised her head and gazed into the mirror.

For one awful second, she thought—but it was only a thought. The visage that greeted her was wonderfully familiar; it was almost like meeting an old friend. The brief glimpse she'd caught the night before had been the first time she'd seen herself in... weeks? Months, perhaps; the realization of how quickly the nights had slipped through her hands brought with it a queer, gnawing sense of shame. It had not even occurred to her to look at a newspaper, as she'd made her inquiries that evening.

She hadn't looked because she had assumed she couldn't; finding out that she could, at least for now, was both a relief and a reminder; for in that glimpse last night, she had also learned why she would some day find it unwise to allow mirrors in her presence.

_No. _No, don't worry about that right now; it was an irrelevance, not a memory to be pored over. Right now, she was only herself. She raised a hand to brush the strong angle of her jaw with her fingertips. Her face was the same one that had peered out of her passport photo; not too different from the one that lurked in her high school yearbooks. She was pale, it was true, but who wouldn't be? She'd always been fair-skinned. Her eyes had always been dark; perhaps they bore the marks of what she'd been through, but there was nothing truly _different _about them save the knowledge they now carried. She kept her lips carefully pursed.

There. That hadn't been nearly as bad as she'd feared it might be. There were so many silly things she wasted her time thinking about. She needed to stop it.

As if released from a compulsion, she turned away, and began to carry on with her plans for the evening. She bent over and turned on the bathtub's faucet, before sitting down on the lip of the tub to unlace her boots just as much as required to kick them off. Rising, she stripped off her shirt in one smooth movement as she did, and then slithered out of the sports bra that was all she'd been able to scrounge. The dull, thrumming roar of her bathwater was soothing; normal. Eeling out of her jeans, she let them lie where she'd stepped out of them.

Dipping a toe into the half-full tub gave her pause. The water heater was generous; she could see the steam rising from the water almost as soon as it left the faucet, but she felt nothing against her skin save a dull warmth. She wiggled her foot, hoping it was merely a momentary lack of sensation, but she felt nothing but the splash of water against her skin. She frowned in thought; this wasn't right, somehow, but she could not begin to guess why. The water had to be hot; she might scald herself unknowingly. But, then, there was snow on the ground; perhaps the room was cold, and the water simply tepid. That must be it. Satisfied with the explanation, she stepped in and lowered herself into the churning water.

She leaned back against the tub, laying her arms on its sides and resting her head against the wall, wiggling her toes beneath the faucet's pounding. It had been ages since she'd had a proper bath, no matter how long it had been since she'd felt water against her skin; the gatehouse's shower facilities had consisted of a pipe set high in the wall that dribbled icy water on anyone brave enough to stand below. She smiled at the memory of Lillian's horrified shrieks, and Mara's teasing laughter. The recollection brought with it an ache of loss, but she was pleased to realize that the mere thought of them was no longer a raw, throbbing wound; it was possible to reminisce, to remember the good times without mourning them to the depths of her soul.

They'd been avenged.

But that thought brought with it other memories she was not yet ready to confront, and so she made an effort to settle herself more comfortably in the tub; there were few back home large enough to accommodate the length of her legs, and it was a pleasure to simply stretch out beneath the water. The steam was thick enough to dampen her hair, making it cling to her cheeks in strands. She tried simply to loll, luxuriating in this unusual treat; but soon found that even it had been tarnished for her. She'd always loved a good soak, but this brought none of the expected pleasures: her muscles did not loosen in the hot water, nor did her skin soften and blush with heat. Annoyed and dismayed, she reached up to close the tap with one of her feet, subsiding into the water with an eerie, unnerving discomfiture.

England. It would have to be England. Or Scotland, perhaps Ireland; she was fuzzy on the geography, and would settle for whichever was closest.

Easier said than done, of course, but still by far the easiest solution she had yet been able to come up with. It would at least broaden her options; place her somewhere that she could at least communicate effectively. It would get her away from Bucharest. It would get her amongst people who would be disinclined—perhaps even incapable—of asking the questions she was most terrified of having to attempt to answer. And she thought that, assuming luck was with her on the logistical side of things, the international dateline would aid her even further. She'd have to check a time-table before she dared to risk it, but she was almost certain that the time zone changes could allow a carefully chosen flight to cross the ocean under cover of darkness.

No awkward questions about baggage that way.

She sank deeper into the water as she grew lost in thought, submerging her shoulders, the tip of her chin. She was allowing herself to get lost in the details, as consequential as they were, simply because the main fact that her current plan was built around was almost too horrifyingly bizarre to contemplate. But it was the lynch-pin that everything else rested upon; what else could she do? There were certainly such things as forged documents, unless the spy movies had led her terribly astray, but she hadn't the faintest idea how to go about acquiring them. Stowing away was also an option, and not one she had entirely dismissed; she was almost entirely positive she'd have no trouble boarding an airplane unnoticed, or exiting one even if she were; it wasn't as if they could pull the plane over to kick her off mid-way through the journey. But what if she were wrong about the time? What if there _was _an unscheduled stopover? Which was a risk she'd have to take, regardless, but...

...but the easiest way was often also the simplest. It _was _entirely possible that she could simply purchase a ticket—with funds she had yet to acquire, but she expected she could do so with little qualm—board a flight, and return home an honest citizen. She could seek out the embassy, give them a story about a spontaneously extended vacation and a stolen purse, and have a temporary passport issued. It could be so simple.

As long as the government didn't realize that she was dead.

It was a gamble she could scarcely stand to imagine making, but it wasn't one she could turn away from any longer. She had no idea what had become of her original passport; had no idea how much of what happened had become public knowledge, and in what form, but she hoped... Becky had been shocked to hear from her, which indicated that the disappearance of three American exchange students had not become international news. Mel had seemed completely confident that travel papers for Michelle could be arranged; but, then, he had never actually produced them. What might he have said of her? To whom?

Who might know what had actually befallen them, besides Michelle?

Her lip quivered suddenly, the shame, the rage, the miserable, piteous _loss _of it all flooding over her anew. She hadn't done _anything _to deserve this; none of them had.

People rarely did. She'd had to work very hard to find them.

She let herself sink lower into the water, feeling it lap against her chin. For the first time in... a very long while, she found herself able to think of Stefan without... cringing. She'd never thought of him as anything other than a dashing foreign student; sleekly handsome, well dressed, and flawlessly polite, his easy, fluent English had been a welcome respite from the taciturn locals they had been attempting to interview. Standoffish, certainly, and disinclined to offering details... but Michelle had thought at first that was simply because he preferred Lillian.

And once she knew better... she'd stayed. She'd stayed for her friends; even now, could not imagine doing otherwise; but while many others would have fled when Stefan had abjured her to, she had not.

And she had asked. She had _asked _him to do it. Confusion, terror, and mortal dread had been what motivated her, but at that point, she had had a horrifyingly accurate idea of what she had been letting herself in for. She'd asked anyway.

And she had received.

Sliding her shoulders against the slick surface of the tub, she braced her feet against its opposite wall, and let herself slip even further, closing her eyes out of long habit as her curls floated briefly at their level. There was one bad moment as the water closed over the tip of her nose—ancient reflex made her want to bolt upright; or perhaps only to suck in one last, dooming lungful of liquid—but she made herself ignore it, concentrating on the feel of the porcelain against her shoulder blades, the unnatural creep of water into her nostrils. She had to bend her knees slightly to fit, but she soon lay completely submerged and completely, utterly still.

Opening her eyes took a bit of nerve—she expected it to sting, at the very least, but all she felt was a slight pressure, her vision blurred with the gentle ripples of the water's surface. She could not help but marvel at it; though at tiny voice in the back of her mind screamed a dozen different warnings at her, she was completely comfortable. She wasn't even holding her breath; she could feel the slow trickle of water down the back of her throat as it seeped into her nose, reminiscent of hay fever. She would have counted her heartbeats, if she'd had any, and so settled for the best approximation of seconds that she could recall. A minute. Two. Three.

She was _fine._

This was the life she had to live now; no amount of regrets, no protestations about the unfairness of it all would ever change that, and it was time she got on with it as best she could. Her mouth twisted in a smirk. She had all the time in the world, bought with blood and suffering; she simply needed to determine how best to spend it.

Home. Definitely. Absolutely. Not that she had the faintest idea of what she intended to do once there, but almost as much as she yearned to put the terrible memories of Romania behind her, she longed for familiarity; places, perhaps even people she remembered, some day. But for now it would be enough to get back; then she could decide where to go from there.

As loath as she was to expose herself to that kind of notice, there was no denying that contacting the embassy, if all went well, would be the best way to accomplish that goal, and it was only her own self pity that kept her from seeing it. Even assuming she had been reported somehow—so what? When confronted with a woman in the flesh, what attache wasn't immediately going to assume that some sort of mistake had been made? And if worst did come to worst... her own feelings needn't enter into it; it simply meant going back to the drawing board. There was no set of handcuffs that could restrain a shadow.

Getting in at all was going to be the difficult part; that meant at least one more day in Bucharest, and probably several. She could find the office easily enough, but she had no idea what sort of hours it kept, and had a feeling that they would be short. But surely there had to be some method of assisting stray citizens whom trouble had befallen in the night; perhaps there'd be some sort of emergency number posted. If nothing else, the nights were growing longer—the sun had set a little more than half past five—if she could find a nearby place to rest, she could rush to the place and pound on the doors, if need be, hoping someone who'd stayed a bit late might take pity on her.

She really hoped there would be an emergency number.

Galvanized by her own decisiveness, she was possessed by a need to find out how right her assumptions might be. She sat up, the water dragging against her like a blanket, and felt an nauseating wave of imbalance wash through her; leaning forward to brace her elbows against her knees, water streamed from her nose and mouth. She snorted a laugh, half-choking on the departing flow; it seemed she would never get away from the logistical difficulties associated with her new condition.

Before the melancholy could settle on her once more, she snatched up the soap and began briskly lathering her wet hair. That done, she rose to her feet and began doing the same with the rest of her body, scrubbing as best she could with her hands; she knew better than to look for a washcloth, having learned on the journey out here that most Europeans considered that far too personal an item to borrow from a hotel. She refused to think about what it was that peeled away beneath her fingernails; it was simply dirt.

But she held her nose when she lowered herself back into the water to rinse.

Climbing out of the tub, she pulled the plug with her foot as she snatched one of the towels off the rack; it was only coincidence that she was ruffling her hair dry as she walked past the mirror. Her skin was still damp when she began reassembling her outfit; she wasn't anxious, precisely, but she had spent so long being afraid—being_ powerless—_that, having come to a decision, she could not bear to put it off any longer than absolutely necessary. She tugged the wet fabric away from her arms as she bent over to pull on her socks and wondered, suddenly, if she didn't look _too _scruffy. The sporting goods store had been the closest thing she'd been able to find to suit all of her needs—and she had wanted _pants _so very badly—but she supposed she did look rather like a lumberjack in her jeans and flannel. Ah, well; she supposed there were plenty of backpackers that looked at lot worse.

She scooped the jacket from the floor and shrugged into it with a smooth movement that already felt as if she'd done it a thousand times; though she had put it on for the first time last night, she supposed she had seen Becky don it often enough it was no surprise the motion felt natural. She tugged at the lapels, settling it more comfortably on her shoulders; she was a little more broad than Becky had been...

...there'd be time to grieve when she was safe. When she was home.

Snatching up the round case, she flung its strap around her neck as she whirled to leave—and stopped sharply when she heard a soft clang of metal from within, following by the low, heavy grate of metal on stone. She caught her lower lip between her incisors, anxious for the first time about the safety of the case's contents. She couldn't imagine that either of the objects was delicate; but, then, she couldn't afford to risk either of them. With a sigh, she ducked out beneath the strap and turned to lay the tube on the bed once more.

Unzipping the top—she believed it had been meant to hold rifles; it was the only thing she'd found to suit her needs—she slipped a hand inside and, with perfunctory swiftness, withdrew a sword that was nearly as long as she was tall. She could scarcely bear to look at it, but her fingers idly caressed its ornate golden hilt as she laid it on the bed; a perversion of reality, the most fearsome weapon she'd ever known, and salvation, all in one sharp package. She had been told it was called the Blade of Laertes and, given the circumstances under which she had acquired it, she had little reason to doubt its connection to that myth of blood-thirsty ghosts.

She had to tilt the case to get the true object of her concern out; it was just a touch too wide to slide easily. She felt its strange contours as best she could through the thick fabric as she worked it out; she didn't think it could have been damaged, but—her fingertips met cool metal and colder stone, and her prize fell into her hand.

She didn't know what it really was, and doubted that anyone ever would. At first glance it seemed almost innocuous: a pale, milky crystal with a deep gray heart, set in a decorative holder, it would not have looked out of place on a slightly grim curio shelf. But when one looked closer, one realized the silver was wrought in the shape of finger bones, tipped with wickedly sharp claws, curled up to grasp the stone, which itself swirled with a strange, murky action that wasn't quite light. It was said to have been stolen from the Vatican itself; it was said to drip the blood of all the saints. What it actually did was... remarkably close to what the legend indicated. The Bloodstone oozed a strange, eldritch sustenance; not only was its owner free of the need to hunt, they were said to be empowered with all sorts of uncanny strengths beyond even the range of their own supernatural ilk.

Michelle now held the two greatest treasures in all of vampire lore. The Bloodstone could grant her life; the Blade of Laertes, a gruesome, agonizing death to her enemies. She had climbed over a pile of corpses to claim them both; but if she could keep them, she would be unstoppable.

The Bloodstone was cool and heavy in her palm as she hefted it. She had already fed for the night; a single drop from the stone would do in place of a murdered human. She wondered how long it would hold her; her appetite for the hunt had slackened as she had grown used to her new state, sometimes allowing her to go three or four days between victims, and she hoped the Bloodstone would prove similar. While she was not entirely sure she believed the claims that the strength it imparted came at the cost of madness—it sounded too much like a tale told to intimidate the uncertain—she was also in no position to risk it.

Time. There'd be time to plumb its secrets; time for everything, once she was safe. And right now, she needed to make certain that the Bloodstone remained so. She had a hard time believing that something so minor as a scratch or ding could harm it, but she didn't dare to find out if she were wrong.

She cast around the room quickly, hoping for a solution—she supposed she ought to find some sort of special container for it, but she had no idea what might serve—when her eyes lit on the pillows. Moving quickly, she stripped one of its pillowcase, and gently lowered the stone into the fabric bag, wrapping the loose ends around it; dissatisfied, she repeated the procedure with the other one, making sure the result was evenly padded. She eyed it uncertainly; she wasn't pleased with it, but it would have to do for now. She worked it back into the case, having to struggle a little to make it fit; but, once seated, it barely made a lump in the case's sides. She carefully took hold of the sword—having seen the horrific results of a mere nick, she wasn't certain if any of the blade was safe to touch—and slipped it back in. The case once more secured on her back, she paused for a moment to consider her options.

Giving her real name at the front desk had been the product of hasty confusion as much as anything else. She'd worried that giving a false name might prove troublesome if she were asked for identification; but, then, she had none proving her actual identity, either. Fortunately, it had proven to be a moot point, and she realized she may have done herself an unintended favor by being honest. _Why, yes, Mr. Consulate, I just got back into town this evening—check with my hotel! _She wondered now how important a point it might prove to be; important enough to walk out past the clerk, make certain she was noticed?

But she was in such a hurry... and her name was already in the register, after all.

The window slid upwards with surprising ease, even though the gritty scrape of dirt in its hinges indicated a long time had passed since it had last been opened. She closed her eyes as she felt the movement of the night air against her face; the wind had picked up significantly in the time she'd been inside, bringing with it a wet flurry of snow. She looked out, frowning; the window didn't offer much of a view of anything besides the building next to it. She wasn't entirely sure where she was; her grasp of Bucharest's streets had never been particularly strong, and she had simply hurried away from the train station until she'd found a hotel that looked moderately safe. Nor was she quite clear on where the embassy was; Mara had pointed it out to them on one of their trips into the city, but while she was sure she'd recognize it, she couldn't remember anything besides the fact that it was somewhere downtown. She could find if, if she walked around a bit, but first she had to find the city center.

But it wasn't as if she was limited to looking through phone books.

Closing her eyes once more, she had to restrain herself from taking a deep breath, still such a habitual part of clearing her mind. She struggled to keep her thoughts blank despite her mounting tension; she'd only done this a handful of times, and still only half-believed that she could do it at all. If there was some trick, some action that inspired it, she had yet to determine what it was; it simply... happened.

_Listen. _

The gravelly rasp of his voice was so clear he might have been standing behind her. She gritted her teeth, struggling to banish the memory; sights, sounds, the feel of cold, dead hands on her face. None of it _mattered. _But as if it delighted in tormenting her, her mind insisted on showing her images of that night; the rain, the hunt, the torn, bloody carcass—

She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to think of it, but—

—the castle—the table—what the ceiling had looked like while—

—when she opened her eyes again, she could _see. _

 

 

 

The shock, the pure, alien wonder of it, was enough to break the cycle of recollection. She might have gasped; she was so enrapt in what lay before her that she wasn't sure. It was the same brick wall she had seen a moment ago, but in such clear, prismatic detail it almost hurt to look upon it. She could see every chip, every crack, every pockmark in the mortar; snowflakes spun through the air like little jewels, the tiny specks of light they refracted as precious as rainbows.

But if she looked _beyond _that—she tried to study the sensation as it happened, but the sensation was so unreal she wondered if there was language to describe it; it felt almost as if she were seeing with the backs of her eyes, absorbing information through the skin of her temples. But things—shifted—it was nothing so simple as being able to see through walls; yet, just that easily, the souls of the city were laid bare for her. Everything, everyone, lay spread out before her, points of illumination speckled throughout the night like a star map.

The effect was dizzying; a stab of pain lanced through her temples, and it took a concerted effort to block enough of it out to make sense of any of it. But the alien vision was only part of it; thoughts buzzed at the corners of her perception, only waiting to be noticed. She knew from rough experience that if she did listen, she could flick through them as easily as tuning a radio; could listen, could _know _them, in a way that didn't require words. It was what had allowed her to choose her prey, and make the deaths she required for sustenance as righteous as any murder could be.

She could do nothing for long moments but let the ocean of sensations wash over her, trying her hardest to keep from being washed away in its overwhelming tide. It was always this way; as exalting as she knew it to be, she did not think that any memory would ever prepare her for the true magnificence of the experience; nor could she ever help but feel like a tiny god, gazing down upon her supplicants.

Michelle grinned, a warm, honest smile that reveled in her own strength and bared her sharp, curved fangs to the world.

It wasn't all bad. No, not at all.

Some rational part of her knew that it was a terrible mistake to make, but it seemed as if she knew _everything. _She could watch them, see where they went, which routes they took, where they gathered, and learn what she needed to know thereby. She wondered if there was some way she could glean more specific information from them, without engaging one directly; she suspected there was, but—time. Time for everything. And now she knew where she needed to be; now it was time to go.

She slipped her skin and slithered down the wall with the speed of a diving falcon.

Where a woman had stood, a shadow now stretched; it rocketed along the wet streets, disdaining the angles physics dictated it ought to obey. It wasn't flight, but she didn't know what else to call it; she loved the speed, the grace, the intangibility of it. She slipped over things, rather than through them, but she needed only the smallest crack through which to find her way; noted buildings, trees, people, even the ground itself only as obstacles, not objects. Her body was wholly irrelevant; she simply was, and simply _willed. _

It was hard not to give over to the sheer inhuman _sensation _of it, but she kept her course; so many people, so many lights, the groups they formed a series of dazzling constellations in her uncanny vision. As fast as thought, she sped toward the area where they congregated so thickly it was as if she viewed a field full of fireflies, sparing no attention for anything that she passed. Cars, buildings, lives; none of it _mattered_, not when balanced against perception like this. She thought she was as close to eternity as a sane mind could stand.

Sooner than she expected—it always was—those faintly gleaming souls drew close enough to separate into individuals; she slowed, amazed, and for a time could do nothing but admire them. She slunk across a sidewalk, pressing her insubstantial form against a wall, and finally took stock of her surroundings. She was in a narrow access way, but she thought the narrow view at the alley's mouth was familiar; eeling forward, she realized that she was looking at the back of the art museum. She paused, satisfied; she wasn't more than a few blocks away from the opera house, which meant that she was as close to the embassy as she could hope to come unaided. She flickered hesitantly; it would be easier to sweep the streets as a shadow, but it would also be easier to make a mistake. She was alone now; she might as well take advantage of it.

The transition felt like walking through a sieve, a process whose internal alchemy she wondered if she would ever fathom. One moment she moved forward, as insubstantial as mist; the next moment her boot struck the pavement, and she strode out onto the pavement with a determined air.

Michelle realized she had been lucky to happen on to a bit of privacy; as late as it must be—two? three?—the area was still surprisingly flush with activity; even the museum was still brightly lit enough to denote current occupancy, and well-dressed groups still made their way along traffic-heavy streets. She supposed it must be a weekend; if both the museum and the opera had hosted events, that could easily account for the unexpected amount of crowding. She slowed her pace, seeking to blend in with the other pedestrians.

As she walked, her eyes scanning ceaselessly for some sign of the embassy, she found that she was having a hard time taking in the simple details of her surroundings. Were there two people walking in front of her, or three? Was that a softly glowing street lamp, or a sign? Her brows drew down in concern as she struggled to make her eyes focus. Nothing looked _wrong,_ exactly, but there was a strange cast to everything that she saw; a hazy unreality seemed to permeate the scene before her.

When she finally realized what it was, she nearly stopped dead in her tracks; might have, had she not heard someone stop short behind her. She got herself moving again, working her way through the flow of foot traffic, turning her head to gaze around like a tourist. _It hadn't left her. _She was physical; she was _real, _caught up in the world just as much as everyone around her; and yet, somehow, she was still seeing them through her night-eyes, through no apparent effort of her own. Misty cauls attended every person she saw, some bright, some faint, all those ephemeral outlines indicative of some quality she had never quite been able to clarify; health, sanity, well-being, decency. Yet while their apprehension had always required the specific act of will she had put herself through before leaving the hotel, it now attended her as easily as breathing had, once upon a time.

She found herself growing excited, despite the uneasy thrill the realization gave her. She had grown so superstitious about the ability that it was hard to reconcile when it wasn't all-consuming; yet at the same time, it was somehow reassuring to realize that it might be natural. Perhaps it was simply a matter of practice; once she had grown familiar with it, she would be able to use it at will. Or perhaps it was simply a product of maturity; as she settled more deeply into her current state, it would become as much a part of her as her normal vision had been. She wasn't certain how she felt about that idea; while it was incredibly beneficial, she didn't know if she liked the idea of this level of intimacy with every single person she ever encountered. When she did it deliberately, it took concerted effort to focus on whatever it was she was seeking; even now, it was a little difficult to separate what was really there from what wasn't. Perhaps that was why it had seemed comparatively easy to trick some of the older ones she had encountered; perhaps it took so much concentration to realize what was in front of them that less evident things could slip by them.

She didn't like that idea at all. She squeezed her eyes shut and blinked them rapidly, trying to clear her vision; to no avail.

But there was no point in fretting about it now; it didn't seem as if there was anything that she could do about it, anyway. _She _needed to focus on what was ahead of her and, right now, that was finding her way back home.

Her feet had carried her to the fringes of the arts district, where the few antique buildings that had survived Ceausescu's plan for modernization gave way to the tall, serried tenement buildings that had had meant to replace them all with. She did her best to look casual, stuffing her hands in her pockets and keeping her gaze lowered, but kept her hearing sharp. She didn't think that this was necessarily a bad neighborhood, but it did not look welcoming, and she had no wish to attract undue attention. The realization made her smile. A few months ago, she would have been petrified to set foot in a place that looked like this; now, she was simply worried about what a fuss it would be if she were accosted.

There were upsides to everything.

It was a marble building, she thought; and it had some kind of decorations out front... not pillars, but statues, maybe, or urns. She remembered being surprised that the Romanian government had allowed the Americans to occupy such a nice building when there were so few left. She turned right, pacing up a relatively deserted sidewalk on the street that separated the old quarter from the new. She was fairly certain it had been near the border, as she had been startled by her first sight of what appeared to her to be gulag-style apartments not long after Mara had pointed it out; but it hadn't beentoo far from the opera house. Had it?

She slowed her steps, trying to think her way through it; suddenly, canvassing the neighborhood did not seem as good an idea as it had back at the hotel. She glanced around, but found herself mostly alone. Though her Romanian was probably good enough to ask directions, she wasn't certain the average person would take notice of something like a foreign embassy. She supposed a phone book was not out of the question, though her reading comprehension was next to nonexistent, but where could she find one at this hour? She couldn't spot any taverns; the only one she knew of in the area was a place she never intended to set foot in again. She supposed it was time to start exploring her options.

Michelle let her eyes unfocus, trying to concentrate more on what she _knew _than what she saw; it brought a dizzy, sick-making feeling, but it worked. She saw the city's denizens around her wherever she looked, laid over her vision like a transparent map, glowing feebly or fiercely at various distances. She wasn't sure if depth perception applied here; some were near and some were far, but she could not have guessed how near any but the closest were. She wondered how far she could sense, if she really put her mind to it, but dismissed the thought quickly; now wasn't the time. As she turned her attention towards specific—people; she had to think of them as other people—she could begin to hear them, their thoughts stippling against her own as if her skull was membranous. She let the unnerving awareness pass over her, and began to skim amongst them.

She didn't know what she intended to find—an embassy employee whose presence she could glean, perhaps—but she was disappointed. There were just so _many _of them; any information she might have gained was lost like wind through the rushes. She could listen in on any one of them that she wished and get the sense of them, if not their speech; but it was impossible to determine which one she needed.

Sighing, she increased her pace, letting her feet carry her forward with little thought as to where they carried her; she supposed she would simply have to quarter the neighborhood. Her eyes flicked back and forth, alert for any sign of the embassy, but most of her thoughts were on the information her strange new senses brought her. As disturbing as the idea that this might be permanent was, it was impossible not to be fascinated with the information they brought her; and who knew if some of it might prove useful in her search?

Even as she walked, it was becoming easier to parse all the input she was receiving; it became easier to tell one person from another, to—watch—a particular individual without becoming ensnared by their thoughts. It was as easy to tell sheep from goats as it had ever been; she found her attention drawn towards those who carried taint within them, blotting and crazing their cauls. It seemed that, even though freed from the requirement for it, she could not help but size up prey. If she wanted to, she could sniff out their particular sins, but the contact left her feeling filthy, wracked with despair; it was under the aegis of those emotional assaults that she could bring herself to kill at all.

Without having meant to, she realized she had been tracking the progress of a heavily sputtering light, following their progress along streets that couldn't have been too far away. It was moving quickly—probably too quickly, she realized, and felt a sudden twist of anxiety. Running from, or hurrying to? She stopped, uncertain. She wanted desperately to know what that person was up to, but could not bring herself to immerse her thoughts in them deeply enough to find out. But what if they had just done something horrible and were fleeing the scene? What if they were even now running down a victim of their own?

It didn't matter. She wasn't a _superhero. _Bad things happened every day; she could not take a hand in all of them. She had sworn that she was done with hunting. Maybe they were simply running to catch a bus.

Or maybe some harmless soul was lying in an alley, bleeding their life away. Or was about to be.

She didn't _have _to kill them. Surely she could stop things without going that far. Maybe there'd be nothing to stop.

Maybe this was an upside, too.

She exploded out of her skin, heedless of who might have seen her, before she had a chance to change her mind. She sped through the darkness, along, beside, around, nothing in her thoughts but velocity and the location of that sulky, ominous glow. As she flew, bloodlust began to hum in her veins like an old, familiar song; as much as she tried to quell it, her fangs still ached with the anticipation of sinking into flesh. She told herself it was only habit; she was only going to find out what was happening, and then—maybe—do something about it. She wasn't stalking; she was only seeking.

True to her promise, once she'd come near enough, she drew up short between two buildings; it would be ridiculous to come bursting out of the shadows if something completely innocuous lay ahead of her. She coalesced balanced on the balls of her feet, straining her eyes and ears for some sign of what was going on. She was close enough—fast enough—she'd be able to intervene if there was any reason to.

Traffic. The narrow street was empty, but those close to it weren't; looking around, she realized that she stood between two warehouses, and that the rest of the street was lined with them. This must be some kind of shipping area; her heart sank with the realization that it was probably quite busy even at this time of night. Perhaps her mark was simply running to catch a delivery truck; she couldn't bring herself to punish him for what he might do on his off hours.

Pounding footsteps. Her head swiveled as if it were on a bearing. She meant to plant herself a little bit ahead of him and... she had. A middle-aged man came running around the corner, elbows pumping, the tails of the over shirt he wore flapping in the wind of his passage. His face was strained, his brow wet with sweat, his teeth bared with effort, but even that didn't necessarily mean anything, if he weren't used to running. She could hear the labored razoring of his breath as he drew closer, and he didn't seem as if he were going to stop any time soon.

Her vision narrowed as she watched him, shrinking down into a hunter's tunnel vision as she tracked his movement. She was aware of _everything_, even as she zeroed in on him: the fat wet snowflakes that splatted against her face, the rumble of heavy truck engines near by, the soft creaking of her leather jacket as her muscles tensed involuntarily, the way the case shifted against her hip, spoiling her balance ever so slightly. It was all she could do to hold herself still. He was fleeing. She wanted to chase him.

He sped past her hiding place—she could have reached out and sunk her fingers into his arm. As if he realized it, he immediately veered to his right, cutting across the street at a long diagonal, his feet slipping on the wet blacktop. He managed to save his balance and keep moving; he seemed to be heading for a narrow alley much like the one she currently occupied. She forced herself to straighten, tried to make herself relax; he was probably just going to slip into one of the side doors. There was nothing to be concerned with here. She unclenched her palms from the fists she hadn't realized she'd made. Stupid. She'd wasted time on this, time she'd need to find a place to rest for—

A woman's voice, high and alarmed.

Her head whipped around to track it; it had come from _behind _the man, and it sounded frightened. She sank into a crouch, prepared to leap in either direction, her gaze flicking back and forth between the man—he'd almost made the alley—and the direction the shout had come from. Help her, or harm him? What had _happened?_ It galled her not to lunge after him; every instinct she possessed cried out for her to spring—but if that woman was hurt—if he'd done something—if she really thought she'd be safe around a potentially bleeding, terrified mortal—

Another figure rounded the corner so quickly that she at first thought she was seeing someone riding a scooter—low to the ground, light colored, faster than a person could ever hope to run. But the strange vision resolved itself quickly, though Michelle could scarcely believe what she was seeing: a lithe figure, wrapped in a loose, light-colored garment, _scrabbled _along the sidewalk, propelling itself unnaturally quickly with all four of its limbs. As she watched, rooted to the spot with shock, it righted itself, straightening into a rapid, loose-limbed lope; it was as if the runner had taken the corner a little too sharply, but had been unwilling to sacrifice momentum to the sake of getting up.

By the time she realized what was about to happen, it was already too late; even she couldn't have crossed that distance in time. The pursuer gathered itself and sprang with a surging, mechanical leap, tackling the man to the ground with a bone-jarring thud. He screamed in pain, and Michelle burst from her hiding place, elbows pumping; the figure raised its hands, wriggling its body at an insane angle so that it knelt on his back, and plunged its fingers into his throat, wrenching them apart in a crimson welter of gore. The figure jerked its head up at her approach, baring its teeth with a bestial snarl that seemed to shake the ground beneath her feet.

Michelle found herself skidding to a halt in the middle of the street, even as her heart froze with horror and grief. Contorted as it was with lust and rage, she had no problem recognizing that face.

The girl who played the piano fastened on to her victim's throat like a lamprey.

Time seemed to stand still as Michelle was confronted with the utter depths of their failure; she did not know who to mourn for more deeply.

They hadn't saved her. It had all been for nothing.

She scarcely knew what to do—there was no point in trying to pull the girl off of him—but there was someone running towards her; she swiveled to face them, heels slipping in the snow, and—

—her world ended.

For an endless moment, she thought that she had died; there was only emptiness, nothingness, a total absence of thought, self, presence.

But as she explored those sensations, she realized that they couldn't be correct. If there were truly nothing there, she would not be able to apprehend it; there would be no _her _to do the apprehending. This could not be an afterlife.

Then she began to wonder if she was in fact correct, but in a way she did not entirely understand. She passed her days in a sleep that might as well have been death; no broken rest, no dreams, no memories, nothing but the sun sinking where it had just been rising to indicate that she had done anything more to blink her eyes. Perhaps, as the strange character of her sight had indicated, she had progressed beyond oblivion; perhaps this utter, blank stillness was what now passed for dreaming.

The idea cheered her. She knew that she was not necessarily confined to her rest while the sun rode the sky; he hadn't been. Perhaps this new awareness was a part of that; perhaps this meant that she could now rise as well. She shuffled her elbows, setting them against the hard surface beneath her, and began to rise.

She thought at first that the pain had blinded her; it felt as if the right side of her head was about to slide free of its moorings. She fell back the scant inch or two she had managed to gain, staring upwards, willing the pieces of her skull to adhere to one another, praying for the agony to subside or to claim her. Yet as she stared, she realized she saw tiny flecks of movement, and that the stark white that filled her vision was not absolute, filtering into darkness at the edges of her sight.

Lights. Snow falling through beams of light.

_What?_

Her eyelids fluttered with the strain of rolling her eyes backwards, the movement causing her sight to haze into uncertainty; but she waited, counting the seconds between flashes of pain, until the picture behind her resolved. A metal grille. A shiny bar beneath it. Red paint.

A truck.

She'd been hit by a truck.

She might have laughed, if it hadn't hurt so badly. Had she wandered out into traffic? How had she not seen it coming?

The smell of blood was everywhere. Some of it was hers, undoubtedly oozing from gashes she was as yet unable to separate from the pulverizing ache that was her body; some of it was fresh. She slid her parched tongue against the backs of her teeth, contemplating the richness of the scent.

Somebody was whimpering, the soft, hacking sounds of a grief too great for tears. Surprisingly, it wasn't her.

Somebody else was yelling.

It didn't matter. She hurt so badly.

She was so thirsty.

She flexed her fingertips lightly, feeling the pebbled surface of the wet street beneath them. She thought she could sit up—thought she'd managed to, at least a little—but she couldn't bring herself to try again. Something was _wrong_ in a deep, primal way, even beyond the excruciating pain. Trying to turn her head proved a foolish idea as it seemed to explode in a cascade of agony; when her vision swam back into focus, she was still looking upwards at the same angle. She was not surprised when her legs did not immediately obey her desire for movement, but she knew a numb, hollowing dread when she realized she could not so much as wiggle her toes.

Her head—she could see out of her right eye, so it couldn't be _that _bad, but—but it hurt. Maybe it could. Maybe it was. And try as she might, she could not move her feet; the lower half of her body didn't even hurt.

A vehicle accident that ended in an un-breathing pedestrian with a smashed head and what she was growing more and more convinced had to be a broken back—

She could not allow that thought to continue; could not let it rob her of what little self-possession she had managed to regain. It did not matter what paramedics or onlookers might make of it; she had to get clear.

Yet as hard as her skull pulsed with the agony of her efforts, she remained stubbornly anchored to her flesh.

She was doomed.

She was _starving. _

The aching dryness of her mouth was suddenly insistent enough to make itself felt over the clamor of her other injuries; she closed her eyes and let her mouth gape open, hoping against hope that the light fall of snow might to something to slake her perishing thirst. But as she knew it would, it only grew worse; the waft of spilled blood on the damp night air was nearly enough to drive her insane. It was close—_so _close—but in her current state might have been on the other side of the ocean for all the good it did her.

She would have lapped it from the sidewalk, if she could have. Would have done _anything._ Some calm, rational part of her mind was fully aware that it was solely because she was so gravely injured. An infusion of fresh, life-giving warmth—perhaps even a mouthful would be enough to set her right; able to mend her just enough to allow her to flee. It was all she wanted. All she _needed._ And just so narrowly out of reach.

Or perhaps not.

She couldn't tell if the strap was still around her chest, but she thought the lump angling beneath her shoulder blade might very well be the case containing her treasures. The Bloodstone could save her. If she could reach it.

With utmost care, she began to grope along the pavement, feeling very carefully for any sign of the tube; it was hard to single out any particular sensation, but if she were right, it should be jutting out beneath her hip very near to where her hand currently was. Getting it out from beneath her—getting it open—getting the Bloodstone—she banished the extreme difficulty of such formerly simple actions from her mind with a ferocity born of desperation. One thing at a time. First, she had to grasp it. If it hadn't been knocked free in the impact.

Something cut into the light above her. She blinked, thinking the effort of movement had caused her sight to darken, but the blot resolved itself into a human figure that had inserted itself between her head and the truck's bumper. She sagged back against the pavement, letting her eyes droop shut, half-hoping to be mistaken for dead; she did not think she would be able to refrain from giving them the last surprise of their life if they knelt close enough to sink her teeth into.

“Do you think you can do it?”

Michelle's eyes blinked open in surprise at the relative calm of the question, even as her weary mind struggled to make sense of it. Had they been watching her struggling movements? Had they somehow divined what she was attempting to do?

“It's her _neck._” A male voice, taut with frustration. She decided that the first voice had been female, and had not been addressing her directly. Paramedics. _Shit. _She pursed her lips over her fangs, heedless of how they scored her dry flesh. She didn't think she could help herself, but—

English speaking paramedics.

What?

The woman behind her knelt down; Michelle rolled her eyes back in an attempt to follow her progress, but lost sight of her as she settled to her knees. “We have to move you,” the woman said forcefully. “Do you understand? We _must. _But first, I must straighten.” A few locks of golden hair swung into her vision, as if the woman didn't quite dare to lean over far enough to bring herself in reach. Wise of her. “You _must _let me touch you, and you _must _be very still. It is imperative.” The voice softened. “Please, Michelle.”

Despite the pain, the feel of those hands sliding beneath her head was tantalizing beyond measure. So warm, so soft, so redolent of life; all she had to was turn her head. Her lips skinned back from her teeth involuntarily as fingers gently prodded the base of her skull. So _close._

The hands tightened their grip with sure, steady strength, and _pulled._


End file.
